Thursday, January 30, 2014

Report suggests Jewish refugees under discussion

An advertisement appeared today in both the Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom drawing attention to the Big Nakba ('for those who know and those who need to know') - namely the forced exodus of Jewish refugees from Arab countries. Half of Israeli Jews, it states, are refugees from Arab countries. (These outnumber Palestinian Arab refugees by as many as two to one.)

The unattributed advertisement appears to be timed to coincide with reports of what a final peace deal brokered by the US Secretary of State John Kerry would look like.

Activists on behalf of Jewish refugees have been worried by news (broken by Point of No Return) that Tzipi Livni, Israel's chief negotiator with the Palestinians, did not see a connection between Jewish and Palestinian refugees. There is anxiety in some quarters that Ms Livni is still failing to include the Jewish refugee issue on the peace agenda.

This year the UN has declared the Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian Refugees. MK Zeev has called for it to be declared the Year of Solidarity with both Palestinian and Jewish Refugees.

However, other sources say that the issue is on the table and is being discussed.

Confirmation from the Palestinian side appears in this Jerusalem Post article, they say. The article quotes a response of PLO Executive Committee Secretary General Abed Rabbo to the Kerry proposals.

Abed Rabbo said: “the plan proposes Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, the establishment of the Palestinian capital in a part of East Jerusalem and solving the refugees problem in accordance with former US President Bill Clinton’s vision.”

Abed Rabbo does not mention Palestinian refugees, referring instead to "the refugees problem" in the plural - language echoing the wording of UN Resolution 242 covering both refugee populations – Jews and Arabs.

He also refers to Bill Clinton's vision or plan. The major component of the Clinton plan is the International Peace Fund, which would provide compensation to both Jewish and Arab refugees.

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Introduction

In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been 'ethnically cleansed' from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people.This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were - even if they wanted to. It will attempt to pass on the stories of the Jewish refugees and their current struggle for recognition and restitution. Awareness of the injustice done to these Jews can only advance the cause of peace and reconciliation.(Iran: once an ally of Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now an implacable enemy and numbers of Iranian Jews have fallen drastically from 80,000 to 20,000 since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their plight - and that of all other communities threatened by Islamism - does therefore fall within the scope of this blog.)